Guild Wars 2

I originally did not pay very much attention to my build, and my gameplay was just exploring at heart. I couldn’t care as much for high quality gear, or max damage. I’d rather find out what’s in some unknown forgotten cave tucked out of sight and beat up whatever poor monster lived there. But since I’ve almost completed the world map, and visited most (I doubt I found all) of the hidden areas, I’m planning to gear my mesmer properly.

I still want to keep my mesmer as a soloist – good survivability, but still able to pack a punch. Mostly I want to be able to keep soloing champion mobs, but still offer enough damage/assistance for group events. I don’t want a tanky mesmer, but I don’t want to fall flat in a few hits. And until I can level my other characters, my mesmer will be my go-to dungeon runner for now.

Right now the trait build is 30 power, 30 precision, and 10 toughness (only for fall damage skill). I’m content to keeping it at that – but I need to adjust my gear. I’m planning to set it to be a flat Power/vitality/other stat, and I need advice for what that ‘other stat’ should be. Mesmers being light armor, I don’t think toughness would be much of help anyway. I’m leaning more to having it either be precision or crit rate.

Speed is another issue. I don’t want to sacrifice rune stats for movement speed, but if it will help in single combat PvE, I’ll consider it.

As well on another note – I can usually handle one champion alone, even if it spawns non-veteran minions. But if there is a veteran or two along with the champion, I can’t solo it. I wonder if any mesmers here can manage to solo a champion along with some veterans…

If I want to be a soloing mesmer, how much should I pay attention to healing traits? Currently I don’t bother with anything with regenerating health stability. Most enemies don’t get close enough to me, and if they do I just escape out of the way. If I take too much damage I just keep moving until I can heal. If it’s too much I sacrifice my illusions for distortion. (Or since I’m a sylvari, use seed turret ultimate skill, gain temporary invulnerability, and use the seed turrets as a distraction to move away until I can recover). But I’d like to know if there are any ways to have steady regenerating health for a mesmer?

And lastly, my weapon choices are scepter/pistol and the greatsword – plenty of range damage, and enough illusions to provide a distraction. I’m fine with my weapon choices now, but I bet it can be improved – I’m more than happy to try something else.

The last area for me to explore are the Orr regions, and my general tactics for soloing don’t seem to be viable there. My biggest weakness is being immobilized – which there seem to be a lot of in Orr. And consistent poison damage, bleh. I also can’t seem to rely on my seed turrets either, since they aggro more enemies than I can handle. Usually if this is the case, I’ll summon either the Druid spirit or Sylvan hound (other racial skills), but the cooldowns are too long for my preference.

All right, if you sat through that wall of text, I’ll thank you for having the patience for reading it. Now lend me some advice!

What? No one?

…

…Was the wall of text just too foreboding?

Feel free to explore some of my builds, they are all made for (solo-)PvE. Maybe a Phantastic Phantasm variant would fit for you.

Just check my signature.

I’m sorry I’m late Had much to do this morning. So – may I ask you if you are EU or NA? And are you maybe even german? I really respect somone that gives a nice picture of himself with the nice text. I can now know what you are looking for. So it probably would be easier ingame or even with teamspeak or something. I really enjoy your wall’o’text more than a simple “hi need dmg what build shall i go? solo”

greez

Arikyali.5804:

The last area for me to explore are the Orr regions, and my general tactics for soloing don’t seem to be viable there. My biggest weakness is being immobilized – which there seem to be a lot of in Orr. And consistent poison damage, bleh. I also can’t seem to rely on my seed turrets either, since they aggro more enemies than I can handle. Usually if this is the case, I’ll summon either the Druid spirit or Sylvan hound (other racial skills), but the cooldowns are too long for my preference.

Being immobilized shouldnt be a problem – Even half a dozen Orrian mobs can barely hurt a decent Mesmer. Either you live with it or you bring condition removal. The Mesmer have some pretty strong instant condition removal in null field, cleansing mantra and remove a condition on heal.

You can easily use Mass Invisibility as the elite. Decent way to run away from mobs.

Regarding the overall tactics of choosing a build… Orr open PvE actually has a great way to test yourself, the Veteran Risen Giants (try not to mistake that single Champion for one though, lol). They arent your average veterans, they are pretty darn tough and you can measure your dps by them… if you die before them you’re doing poor dps no matter your build. If you want to up the challenge, just aggro more Orr mobs into the battle.

Go try to kick one in the balls and see how it goes.

If you kill it easily, you’re all set for PvE.

“Mesmers being light armor, I don’t think toughness would be much of help anyway.”
Actually it’s the other way around. The lower your base armor, the more useful toughness is. It’s because damage = (incoming damage) / (total defense), so increasing a small defense number = decrease damage by a large %. Also, mes has pretty decent base HP so stacking vita isn’t as useful unless you’re vs all conditions.

That said, as mesmer I prefer to not get hit in the first place. I find PU builds fun even in PvE, let the clones kill ’em and stealth anytime something comes sniffing too close. Rampager gear works well for that, or rabid if you prefer to be tanky.

Wait a minute….the damage counter is incoming damage divided by total defense? Not a formula that subtracts one from the other, or multiplied by a hidden constant?

Usually in solo situations against a powerful enemy, I stand back and let my clones do the tanking for me. If one is destroyed, I summon another to replace it. I guess what I really want is the ability to survive more than one enemy. Right now, all I have available are greatsword’s wave skill to push them away, or to blink away. (I know a lot of mesmers don’t like the blink skill for combat, but I find it’s very useful for escaping. It’s like a free dodge.) My skillset is also not built for AOE. It’s more of quickly fighting off one enemy at a time.

The staff is more of an AOE weapon for the mesmer, but I just never liked the staff. I only use it out of necessity in dungeon runs. When I try to solo AOE in PvE, it doesn’t go well. Either I don’t have enough practice with it, my build is too 1 on 1 focused, or I’m too used to having a tanky profession when it comes to AoE.

If u want to test survivability for your build in Orr go and fight the champ south east of “Sheltered Gate Waypoint” where the skill point is. Once you can solo that then go and fight the champ east of “Caer Shadowfrain Waypoint”. The latter one is harder as it and the trash mobs around it uses interrupts.

And yes, the trash mobs around these champs will try to get in your way mid fight as they respawn. But they are not overwhelming to the point where you get hit none stop.

Fighting these champs will let you learn whether you have enough escape options and when and how to avoid burst damage that the champs throw at you at intervals. It also will let you know that if you do get hit does your build have a way to recover (e.g. invis, heal).

Once you can solo these then you’re set for pve.

For lower level testing, you can try soloing the Ulgoth chain event in Harahi Hinterlands , foul bear chain event in Fields of Ruin, and the Fire Shaman chain event in Iron Marshes.

I play solo a lot, but much more in WvW than PVE right now. Still, I spend a little time in Orr, and I can take out the giants that throw down all the grubs or the champion blob with this build.

http://bit.ly/14SIa7E

And, I’m using the weapons you’re already using.

You don’t have to use Sentinel gear – it’s very expensive. You can get Soldier’s gear at the temples or a couple of the dungeons.

Good luck!

For PvE soloing it really comes down to having knowledge of the encounter and what tools you have/need to get around that encounter.

The ideal is 100% offensive stats on gear and relying on traits/sigils/weapons to pick up the slack on the defensive side. For instance:

Main hand sword: blurred fenzy → 2 second distort every 12 or 9.6 seconds
offhand sword: block (one hit) every 15/12 seconds
focus w/ trait: reflection for 5 seconds on curtain every 20 (warden is also 5 seconds reflection)
sigil of energy: extra dodge every 9 seconds w/ weapon swap
blurred inscription + signet of midnight: instant cast 1 second of distortion every 30

Basically the concept is, the quicker you kill it, the less time you have to make a mistake.

Anyway, I’d suggest checking out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKONEej6EJ8

Also hit up some of the other videos on his channel, this guy has soloed/duoed some of the hardest content in this game and will probably be a great source of inspiration for you.

Blurred Frenzy is a 2 second evade, not distortion.

Arikyali.5804:

Wait a minute….the damage counter is incoming damage divided by total defense? Not a formula that subtracts one from the other, or multiplied by a hidden constant?

Yep.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Arikyali.5804:

Usually in solo situations against a powerful enemy, I stand back and let my clones do the tanking for me. If one is destroyed, I summon another to replace it. I guess what I really want is the ability to survive more than one enemy. Right now, all I have available are greatsword’s wave skill to push them away, or to blink away. (I know a lot of mesmers don’t like the blink skill for combat, but I find it’s very useful for escaping. It’s like a free dodge.) My skillset is also not built for AOE. It’s more of quickly fighting off one enemy at a time.

The staff is more of an AOE weapon for the mesmer, but I just never liked the staff. I only use it out of necessity in dungeon runs. When I try to solo AOE in PvE, it doesn’t go well. Either I don’t have enough practice with it, my build is too 1 on 1 focused, or I’m too used to having a tanky profession when it comes to AoE.

IMO the staff is really a survival tool. The instant blink on short cooldown really helps put distance between you and the slavering horde, and chaos storm = pretty good CC.

Also as I mentioned above, PU (prismatic understanding i.e. stealth) builds add a lot to survivability at the cost of damage. I.e. you get tons of aggro dropping, protection/regen/aegis. Builds like Blackwater (while intended for WvW, works also for the uses you’re describing) based on PU + rabid gear are basically unkillable by mobs/vets/champs and rely largely on clone bleeds on crit/death to wear enemies down. That said, PU/condi builds are definitely not going to win you any friends in dungeon groups. =)

EDIT:
The build eldenbri linked is PU/power based and probably works on roughly the same principles as blackwater, except based on phantasms instead of ordinary clones.